Page 79 of Intoxicated
Chapter 26
DREW
Can we fall back for a moment and address what the hell happened yesterday?
Even if I expected to see Cher at my grandmother’s place – which I didn’t, by the way – there was no way to anticipate the absolute shit show that was my dinner. So glad they could yuck it up like they had known each other for a hundred years. I don’t get it. Cher should have offended my grandmother no fewer than five times during dinneralone.Yet everything she said only made my grandma laugh or chide her for being a littletooblunt. Let me assure you, though, that wasn’t her truly scolding Cher. She was basically encouraging her. I dunno. I have no idea what kind of conspiracy blossomed between them, but I don’t like it.
You’d think I would, though. The feelings I’m developing for Cher lend themselves to wanting her to get along with my grandmother. She’s hated every girl I’ve dated since high school. Then again, she’s never met the ones I was working for a client. If my grandma really knew what I did for a living… I’d never hear the end of it. Hell, she’d probably never talk to me again. My grandmother can be sensitive like that. I don’t blame her. She’s had a lot in life to be sensitive about.
Cher leaves early in the morning. She doesn’t hang around for one of my grandma’s stellar breakfasts of sausage and eggs. Yet she lingers for a few minutes outside of her rental car, allowing me a chance to ask her what’s going on between us.
“What are you talking about?” she snorts, arm looping over the top of the car door. “Thought we were dating. Let’s keep it simple, Drew.”
“So you still want to meet up soon?”
“When will you be back in Portland?”
Is she really asking me that? With that cheeky smile and those sexy,grabbablelegs poking out of her cotton shorts? “What day do you want me to back there, huh?”
“I’d say today, but I overheard your grandmother giving you a honey-do list.”
“I can be back tomorrow afternoon. Early.” I hold back the door so she can’t yet close it and be on her way. “I’m taking you out for a date. Whatever you want.”
She glances at my jeans and bites her lip. “You know what I want, Benton.”
Really? We’ve gotta bring that upagain?I haven’t had my breakfast yet.
Cher pulls out onto the highway. I stay outside long enough to watch her car disappear in the distance. Upon my return to the house, my grandma hands me a list and makes it clear I’m not going anywhere until the garden fence is reinforced and her downstairs toilet unclogged.
Sometimes, I wonder about the power some women have over me.
***
“But do you know the unipiper?”
The air conditioner keeps the mall a cool seventy degrees, although I hear tales that it’s eighty-five outside. A draft blankets my arms as I whirr down the empty aisles. Well, near-empty. We all know how America’s malls are doing these days. It takes savvy marketing and an iron will to get lazy online shoppers into a giant box full of people. It takes more to get them to spendmoney.My tender heart remembers the days of stuffed stores and departments galore. Those were the days when my mother bothered to shop at the mall. She’d grab me, my sister, and her BFF of the moment for a day of shopping in a busy mall. Now? I can swerve my giant animal scooter around a kiosk selling customizable baseball caps – yes, please – without worrying about a soul.
Even if it means spinning a full lap and almost knocking the head of my bull into the ass of Cher’s tiger.
She glances over her shoulder. Giant, round sunglasses adorn her scalp, but it’s the dangly jade earrings and the sleeves of her green and yellow kimono that have me wagging my eyebrows. Okay, so maybe it’s the sultry look, too. She’s painted some fantastic makeup onto her face. Yes, I notice these things. I die for a pair of eyes lined in black.
